What does “writing well” really mean? Here’s a roundup of the usual suspects: it means coming up with great characters, interesting situations, dramatic scenes, intense conflict, compelling dialogue, gorgeous metaphors, and beautiful sentences, and then sprinkling in a lot of sensory details because that’s what they say brings a story to life. That done, all you then have to do is unleash your creativity—cue the fairy godmother or the muse or a really inspiring dark night of the soul—and voilà! A story appears. Sounds like a surefire recipe for success. Except for the small fact that it
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